If I change but one life for the better with this post, I will be content. A true story.

My mother was a sadist, hit me, screamed at me instead of just speaking. If people had known what she did to me (you can read my Featured story under my Profile) she would've spent years in prison even then back in the 1950s.

She would wake me up in the middle of the night and interrogate me about who I talked to and what I did, threaten me with torture (described in detail), then give me something to drink that would send me back to sleep and make me forget the interrogation sessions but still remember the threats subconsciously.

Obviously, if I am telling the truth (and I am, though I realize some will not believe me), these drugs did not work perfectly. Because I did consciously remember some of these sessions. And they filled me with fear.

The problem with anyone trying to do anything about this was:
Everyone was terrified of my mother, and with good reason. She could end their life, or life as they knew it, with a phone call. No one wanted to bell the cat.

My mother had a very successful career going. She was....a child care expert! No, I'm not kidding. She was a director of a nursery school (where she was known to treat each child with kindness and respect) and she did an excellent job of running her school. She was written up in our local newspaper twice during my miserable childhood with multi-page articles and photographs. Everyone always told me how grateful I should be that she adopted me (at birth). Everyone knows that child care experts are the gentlest people with children, and everyone knows that adoptive parents, with their rescue children, are the most loving of parents. Wasn't I lucky?!

I remember one Saturday when our baby sitter had an emergency and couldn't show up and I was forced to go with my mother to one of the parenting seminars she gave. I was quietly angry as I listened to her tell parents in very emphatic and dramatic tones to never shout at their children or hit them because you fill the child with fear and bring out the worst in them.

As the seminar broke up, people kept telling me how lucky I was to have my wise and wonderful mother. Then we left to go home. As we began the ride over Laurel Canyon, a high winding mountain road, I got too angry to remain silent. I said, "If all those parents had any idea how you treat me they would never go to your seminars."

My mother backhanded me across the face. I was in a very defiant mood, so I screamed, "You're MEAN!" She hit me again, harder. And drove faster. I screamed louder, "You're MEAN!" Each time I screamed, I screamed louder, and she hit me harder. And drove faster.

It quickly became clear to me that, the speed at which she was driving, on that high mountain road, was about to kill both of us. I decided I hated her enough to not care if I died. I knew we'd go over one of those cliffs at any second, but I didn't care, I had to keep screaming out the truth I lived with silently every day. And she obviously felt the same; she would rather die in a car accident than stop hitting me.

As I screamed louder and she drove faster, a policeman pulled up behind her on a motorcycle, turned on his siren and pulled her over. He asked her if she'd been drinking alcohol, then told her to get out of the car, walk a straight line, count backwards etc. He told her she'd been on the verge of a serious accident. His final words to her, as he handed her a ticket for reckless driving, were: "It is not my job to tell you how to discipline your child. But it is my job to tell you that you cannot do it in a moving motor vehicle."

We were both quiet all the way home. I think our brush with Mr. D and the law had sobered both of us although we'd been high on rage, not alcohol.

Years later, a guy who'd once worked as a cop for the LAPD told me they'd never allowed cops on motorcycles in Laurel Canyon. The cop who stopped us saved both of our lives. Was this really a cop? Or was it an angel posing as a cop? I'll never know but I know what I think.

hi Valentine
well said.
Strangely however we are more than the sum of our experiences, nor are we condemned to repeat the crimes of the father. There is hope for the child but he has been injured.
best wishes
:)

Those of us that have received such treatment should make sure the abuse stops with us. Thank you for defending those that can not defend themselves. 😢

good to see you my friend!!!!!! sorry i been absent ,lol your grasp of the cycle of abuse is spot on .but it can be broken

I am one of many
Small branches of a broken tree
Always looking to the ones above
For guidance, strength and security.
One little branch trying
To keep the others from breaking away
Who will fall?
And who will stay?
Now I stand alone
Looking at the earth through the rain
And I see the broken branches I knew
Scattered about me in pain.
There are those who have taken an axe
To the root of our very foundation
And who have passed this destruction
Down to every new generation.
If I could take that axe
I would toss it deep into the sea
Never to return again
To harm the generations that follow me.
I am one of many
But alone I will go
And plant the new seeds
Where a beautiful tree will grow.

As the child of a father who never had a kinder word for me than "idiot" as in "Idiot, get out of the way, I'll do it, smack" I can definitely relate. That being said, there does have to be consequences for some of the actions of children but there are ways to discipline them and correct unruly behaviour that don't involve physical abuse and that's what that was, abuse, plain and simple.

As someone who was beaten I a child I can assure that if I ever have children they'll never suffer the same thing

You will not change anyone's life because bullies enjoy the power they have and will not give it up until they are stopped and led away in handcuffs. No one who beats their child ever thinks they are wrong. In fact, they tend to be proud of it.

Amen.

The same can be said for emotional abuse. I know a man who is estranged from his adult children, because he raised them the way his father raised him. His conclusion: they weren't tough enough to take it!

I posted this following anothers posting that you should take to the belt to correct kids. Blood boiling. I don't know yet if he was tongue in cheek.

I have never hit my two children, I never felt that I needed to. Violence does not make another respect you, it actually does the opposite.

An angry bully, just what every child doesn't need in their home -- pity for that family that the person in need of treatment for anger issues is their father.

This just breaks my heart... And boils my blood at the same time!

God bless you! You are a caring person! When I see abuse I walk up to the person as I’ve done many times and tell them to not hit their child but to calm down. I’ve done that in stores and to animal abusers too!

You might want to get this published, this particular piece is profound

And you're not supposed to go up to people and tell them to knock it off. Although, if it's a young mother with a baby, just let the baby start crying and everyone will gather around asking the mother "what are you doing to that child?" Even if she hasn't done anything.

So sad

Never a truer word said well said buddy.
If only they new what it does to boys inside

How sad...I would have written exactly the same words...well said. 😓

Society has so much to answer for!

So much of accepted parenting is tyrannical!

I was lucky enough to escape the loop, and found a way out for my children and me - foynd what we needed... Not what others told us we should have.
Not that I didn't get stares and dirision for it!.... But I dont care.
I've moved out with my 19 year old daughter - as flat mates - she's my confidant and best friend - and I respect her and admire her.

I feel lucky.

Fuck peoples opinions.

:/ Thank you for this post.

Well spoken indeed 👏

I was in a shop where a kid was darting around playing while his mum was looking at clothes. She grabbed hold (must have been about 4/5) and whacked him across the head. Both my kids saw this and got quite distressed. When we left the store my daughter said very quietly "I'm glad you're my mummy"
My heart still breaks for that little boy.